Eleven Warriors

Even with how well recruiting has gone overall since Urban has taken over, the one spot where it still seems to be a struggle to get guys to make that decision to commit to this program is at OL.  Meyer recovered quite nicely at the end of last year's period (Dodson, O'Connor, Decker), but this year's been tough so far.

I realize it's early, but many of the top OL targets that many of us initially thought OSU had a good chance at landing have already committed elsewhere.

Do recruits not see the wide-open depth chart here, especially once Mewhort, Linsley, and Hall graduate in '13?  It's hard for me to fathom when you look at the amount of OL recruits that have committed to UM and ND the past two years, as opposed to Ohio State.

Whoa whoa whoa.. if you thought I was putting down the recruiting of efforts, that's not what I intended to get across.  It's more of a "what are these recruits thinking" rather than "why isn't Urban working on this."

Some of the guys I thought OSU might have a legit shot at landing - Bivin, Fox, Bosch, Tuley-Tillman (more of a longshot, I know - especially after seeing his Twit pic), McGovern - have ALL chosen either Michigan or Notre Dame.  I guess what I am saying is I don't understand that from the "recruit" perspective. 

Urban has shown he gets guys drafted, and there is very little proven talent in Columbus at the moment on the offensive line.  With a wide-open depth chart and the chance to get recognized right away if the offense puts up the numbers many of us expect, I don't see the downside here.  Compare that to ND and UM, where a boatload of OL recruits will be competing with each other for time from the get-go and throughout their 4/5 years...

That's what doesn't make sense to me.

I want to play the devil's advocate here for a moment. I don't doubt for a moment that U.Meyer is a fantastic recruiter, but had Penn State not had the issues they were having, and are still facing do we even get N.Spence, C.Williams, and A.Reeves. A couple of the other guys that were flipped were thought to have been Buckeye leans until the JT resignation. I've never really followed recruiting as close as I have the past couple of seasons, but I do admit to not being able to remember ever having this many "commits" this early in the recruiting cycle. Now on E.Pocic, I've been a little worried about this situation for a while because nothing has been coming from it, and now this news. I think we can recover nicely however by pulling in all, or any combination of L.Peterson, K.Rodgers, or D.Munger, I wouldn't be the least bit disappointed in that haul, and just like LB we focus on OT position seriously in '14.

Not the news I wanted to hear about Pocic's visit to LSU. Although I don't think we need to hit the panic button I think if they don't get Pocic then they better make a priority to get top O-line in 2014.  I am curious to any opinions to why we are losing out on what seems to be every O-line prospect in mid-west area? ( except Lisle)

@GraySkullSession -

It's not that Hoke had a bunch of OL that didn't fit. It's that he didn't have any damn OL. Of the offensive linemen that RichRod recruited, Quinton Washington moved to defense, Kurt Wermers transferred to Ball State, Dann O'Neill transferred to Western Michigan, Christian Pace had a career-ending injury, Tony Posada transferred then left football entirely (the only transfer under Hoke - and it's an insignificant one), and Rocko Khoury didn't take a 5th year. That means, since 2008, only Elliot Mealer, Patrick Omameh, Taylor Lewan, Michael Schofield, Ricky Barnum, Jack Miller and Chris Bryant are left.

Personally, I put this one squarely on RichRod's shoulders.